The inaugural sustainability “report card” from the city touted Costco carpools, the Sustainable Issaquah community garden and affordable-housing construction in the Issaquah Highlands as signs of “green” progress.

The city released the report Wednesday. City staffers collected data to answer the question: How sustainable are we?

“The report shows us many positive signs — including an increase in Issaquah’s natural open spaces,” Mayor Ava Frisinger said. “Commuters are also making fewer drive-alone trips, volunteerism is strong and participation in the arts is increasing.”

King County Executive Dow Constantine debuted a plan last week to cut energy use, stimulate the development of “green” technology and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The plan sets goals to produce, use or buy renewable energy equal to 50 percent of total county energy requirements by 2012; reduce energy usage in county buildings 10 percent by 2012; and cut energy use in county vehicles 10 percent by 2015.

Constantine announced the plan July 7.

“This 2010 King County Energy Plan builds on these investments and supports my reform agenda’s focus on improving the sustainability and efficiency of county operations,” he said in a news release. “We’ve taken advantage of incentives from local utilities to make investments that produce long-term savings and partnered with private sector companies to produce energy from existing county facilities, such as the Cedar Hills landfill and the West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant.”

Cedar Hills Regional Landfill — spread across more than 900 acres south of Issaquah — serves a role in the “green” vision described by Constantine. Read more

King County Council members donated 27 retired Metro Vanpool vehicles to provide transportation assistance to local governments, community programs, senior citizens and young adults.

The retired vans have been part of Metro Transit’s vanpool fleet for at least six years and have reached the end of their service life. When the vans reach this age, they are considered surplus and sold.

Squak Mountain residents who long for bus service, take heart. The city is exploring options for exactly that.

At a Sept. 11 meeting of the Council Transportation Committee, Transportation Manager Gary Costa outlined some ideas. These include adding to the Route 200 circulator bus; adding to the Metro Route 927 bus, which now runs from Sammamish to downtown Issaquah; starting a dial-a-ride service; starting a ride-share van service; and establishing a “good neighbor” carpooling organization.

Each option has its good and bad points, and none has been analyzed in detail. But at first glance, certain issues were obvious.